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Post by Naitsabes on Aug 15, 2017 17:21:49 GMT
ouch! there must have been some crazy dice rolling and buff/hex spells involved when a couple of stinky beastmen do this to the proud chaos dwarfs.
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Post by Horace on Sept 21, 2017 8:30:44 GMT
Maybe this should go in the battle reports, but something has to go in my paint log! (apologies for any blurry and badly lit photos, it was late) I had some time to get a battle in so I went with pretty much the suggested list here. I dropped the Zombies to 20, took Supernatural Horror & an extra swarm of Bats. Scary leadership bomb Vampire & Black Knights Wraiths & Banshee Ghouls Skeleton Warriors & Necromancer Zombies Grave Guard Hexwraiths Black Coach Forgot the Bats & Dire Wolves My brother had opted for an Empire wizard coven list with Balthasar Gelt, a couple of blocks of infantry and some Knights. Halberdiers & Warrior Priest Swordsmen with Warrior Priest, Witch Hunter & Life Wizard Greatswords with Battle Standard Inner Circle Knights & Heavens Wizard Cannon Hellblaster He also had an Engineer which I forgot to picture
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Post by Horace on Sept 21, 2017 9:05:19 GMT
For spells, I would ideally have liked the utility of a second lore but I always feel a little exposed as Vampires without sufficient levels of Lore of Vampires. I ended up with Invocation, Raise the Dead & Curse of Years on the Vampire & Vanhels & Invocation on the Necromancer. He ended up with all the Metal spells (Loremaster), Awakening the Wood, Flesh to Stone and (I think) Shield of Thorns on the Life wizard. The Heavens wizard got Iceshard Blizzard & Comet of Casandora. For deployment, I wanted to keep my Black Coach away from the Cannon whilst matching up the Hexwraiths and his Knights if possible. He had so few units to deploy it was fairly easy for me to get the matchups I wanted. I huddled together as always with Vampires, trying to at least get a few turns of marching if possible. He also matched me so the near flank was basically totally neglected I moved my dogs up. He had placed his war machines fairly forward. I figured I would threaten them with my dogs so he would either have to charge them with his Knights and isolate them or waste some of his shooting. He rolled first turn. He declined to charge my Wolves and generally moved up. He rolled pretty high on the winds (11 or something) and tried and failed to cast the Comet. He also cast the boosted Searing Doom on my Black Coach (boo, attacking a new model on the table for the first time is not cool). Karma smote him and he rolled something pathetic in terms of hits and put only 1 wound on it after the 4++. Black Coaches are pretty tough. The Cannon tried to shoot down my Vampire Lord and landed a cannon ball right on his head. Fortunately a Black Knight took one for the team instead. The Hellblaster & Engineer fired at my wolves, they rolled 10 shots on the first 2 die, then a misfire. The Engineer re-roll resulted in another misfire and only 2 wolves ended up dead. I seem to remember saying "I'll take that" and was pretty pleased at having lost a total of 4 wounds.
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Post by Horace on Sept 21, 2017 13:52:28 GMT
In my turn, the Undead legions began shambling forward. The Dire Wolves fresh from surviving the Hellblaster barrage made a long charge into the war machine. The Winds of Magic were not strong. I managed to cast Vanhels using the Book of Arkhan to move up the Grave Guard a little further. Everything else was dispelled or failed to cast. The Dire Wolves got stuck into the Hellblaster crew killing one and sending them fleeing. They ran off the board and the Dire Wolves (slowly) plunged after them. The next turn saw my brother getting into a bit of a manourvering problem. He decided he wanted his Greatswords more central which meant reforming and heading back where they came from. He didn’t charge anything with his Knights which perhaps I would have done. He moved Balthasar Gelt up onto the top of the hill to continue threatening my line. However the Winds of Magic were not as kind this turn, he managed to cast another Searing Doom on my Black Coach taking it down to a single wound. It is hard to contain Balthasar Gelt when he is receiving +6 on his casting rolls! He tried to finish it off with the Golden Hounds but rolled only a natural 1 + 2 meeting the casting value but still failing to cast! His Cannon used grapeshot to kill the remaining Dire Wolves On my turn I decided it was time to get my Black Coach into combat whilst it was still alive. I didn’t fancy it’s chances against a large block of infantry but next turn it would be magic-ed off the board anyway. The Black Knights and Vampire, and the Hexwraiths both made long charges into the Halberdiers & Inner Circle Knights Panther respectively. I was most pleased with the Hexwraith matchup The rest of the troops continued to move up. In the magic phase I rolled a slightly more healthy 9 dice. I started off trying to 1 die another Vanhels but it failed to beat the natural 2. The Vampire then went for a 4 dice boosted Invocation which miscast. The spell healed up the majority of damage to existing units, put 2 wounds back on the Black Coach (including the lore attribute) and bulked up the Bat Swarms & Zombies. The Vampire lost 2 magic levels for his troubles losing Invocation & Curse of Years. The Black Coach had channeled a dice to gain scythes & rolled well for its impact hits. The Wraith also killed a couple to down 6 Swordsmen but they remained steadfast and did not flee. There was a similar story in the Halberdiers combat. Despite my super scary Vampire and everyone testing at -1 Leadership (with no re-rolls for fear) the Halberdiers were unfazed. The Vampire was challenged and duly despatched the champion. The horde of Halberdiers threw a lot of dice.. with re-rolls because of the Warrior Priest. They managed to down 4 Black Knights. They were again steadfast and did not budge. The Hexwraiths took down 3 Knights and could not be harmed in return
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Post by mahbruck on Sept 21, 2017 17:59:33 GMT
Cracking batrep and pictures!
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Post by Horace on Sept 21, 2017 19:40:41 GMT
I will finish it off when i get a min
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Post by knoffles on Sept 22, 2017 6:59:08 GMT
Yep really enjoying this. Love the dwarven scenery too
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Post by Horace on Sept 22, 2017 9:23:28 GMT
There was not that much my brother could actually do in his turn. His Greatswords started to trundle back towards the centre. His Cannon shot off a couple of Bat Swarms. Balthasar Gelt killed some Skeletons with some spell or other & the life wizard picked off a few Ghouls with Awakening the Wood. He cast Glittering robe on the Halberdiers. In combat, The Black Coach killed a few more Swordsmen and then evaporated due to static combat res. The Vampire issued a challenge and this time finally scared the Halberdiers into being rubbish. The Vampire chopped the Warrior Priest to pieces and one Black Knight was taken down. The Hexwraiths continued to whittle away at the Knights. In my turn the infantry finally began arriving. It is a long slog when the General has gone marauding off! The Ghouls and Bat Swarms charged the Swordsmen. I managed to get a Vanhels off to move the Zombies up a decent way. My brother used his Dispel Magic Scroll to stop a boosted Invocation being cast. The Ghouls, Bats and Swordsmen chewed through each other in a relatively even combat. The Vampire started to eat into the Halberdiers now he had got rid of all the characters, however despite no wounds being done to the remaining Black Knight the combat was drawn and the musician was enough to evaporate the remaining knight. The Wizard used some minor magic sword to finally do a wound to a Hexwraith who themselves took down another Knight Panther. Another Hexwraith evaporated. The Halberdiers reformed to a more narrow formation...
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Post by Horace on Sept 22, 2017 9:58:52 GMT
Cue moment of controversy! I didn't realise how key this was at this point because I did not know his Greatswords had the Griffon Banner. The Halberdiers reform had opened an avenue for his Greatswords to charge the flank of my Vampire Lord, however after much fannying around we weren't sure how to work it. I suggested we just tilt the combat (see the Closing the Door thread) and let him do it but he then decided he would instead just charge the Bat Swarms because he didn't want to do anything dirty. What a gent. The Cannon shot some more insignificant models off. In the Magic Phase he cast Final Transmutation on my Skeletons turning my Necromancer to gold! I think he also failed to get off another Glittering Robe. The Vampire killed some Halberdiers, lost the combat again to the musician and took a wound, recovered from the Hunger. The Greatswords and Swordsmen massacred the Bat Swarms despite failing their fear tests iirc. The Griffon Banner helped by doubling his rank bonus. The Ghouls took a fair amount of crumble damage. The Hexwraiths were now starting to die by odd wizard wounds and crumble. If his charge into my Vampire had happened I expect my Vampire Lord would have crumbled to death under the weight of the Griffon Banner and the game would have been lost. Just in time the remainder of the infantry arrived. The Skeletons charged the flank of the Swordsmen who failed their fear test due to the Screaming Banner. The Wraiths charged the Greatswords who also failed their fear test. The Zombies charged the Knights who also failed their fear test. Finally the fear bomb was starting to work. The Swordsmen fled under attack from the Ghouls and Skeletons having lost their steadfast and were hacked down by the Ghouls. The Vampire took another 2 wounds in the combat with the Halberdiers but again managed to get one back via the Hunger. The Zombies and the Hexwraiths finally broke the Knights who were chased down, and the Zombies crashed into the Cannon. The Greatswords and Wraiths combat was relatively even, The Wraiths took a couple of wounds because of the very high static res of the Greatswords.
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Post by grandmasterwang on Sept 23, 2017 2:53:53 GMT
ooooh
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Post by Horace on Sept 23, 2017 13:10:48 GMT
The fear bombing was working beautifully towards the latter stages. He was rolling on WS1 for many of the combats. The game wrapped up pretty quickly. Despite the WS1 the Halberdiers kept getting within a whisker of killing the Vampire Lord who had been Plague of Rust-ed a few times. The Hunger kept refreshing his wounds as well as the odd casting of Raise Dead behind Balthasar Gelt. The Greatswords ground down the Wraiths and the Cannon fled from the Zombies who reformed to face the Halberdiers. Balthasar Gelt pounded the Grave Guard but there was not much else he could do. The Hexwraith charged the Engineer and the Zombies charged the Halberdiers The Skeletons charged the Greatswords. The Zombie charge and Vampire Lord finally broke the Halberdiers who were cut down as the Vampire Lord crashed into the Greatswords. The Empire army was in tatters and with that we called it Although in many ways I felt like my brother got a pummeling, the game could really have swung on that charge into my Vampire Lord. Balthasar Gelt forced me to put my metal wearing units into combat as soon as possible which left my infantry with a long slow slog over the battlefield. My brother rued his lore selection which he felt did not complement each other too well. The Zombies, Skeletons & Hexwraiths all performed well, the former working well as reinforcements rather than a frontline fighting unit. The Grave Guard I totally wasted. I couldn't get Vanhels off on them. TheREALricksalamone was correct regarding the Wraiths, they were a bit average really, not terrible but not exactly super. Nullifying the Knights with the Hexwraiths was a key part as well, he should have been more wary of that and not muddled his Greatswords movement behind his other units. The leadership bomb was an interesting one. I was not convinced early on when he was rolling well on all his tests but in the second half of the battle it really started to help. Something I may try again at some point in the future
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Post by Bureaucrat of Chaos on Sept 23, 2017 20:35:48 GMT
Congrats on your fantastic looking armies, especially the sweet old Empire minis. I really should get a game in soon.
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Post by Naitsabes on Sept 24, 2017 3:58:28 GMT
yes, the halberdiers especially. Classic!
The undead are really good looking as well. And the terrain too. This game really checked all the boxes.
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Post by Horace on Sept 24, 2017 14:44:03 GMT
My brother has been working on his empire again. I keep telling him to repaint his old stuff
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Post by Horace on Oct 24, 2017 5:01:49 GMT
My cousin has finally returned Beastlord Rakarth which he borrowed more than a decade ago! I don't think he has rules anymore? Will have to add him to my rules making list and magnetise him with Malekith. Need to pick up the Dark Elves book too.
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